Are You Going to Get a Job When Your Son Starts School??!

[Palooka]

I've been asked this several times lately and it's getting on my nerves. I'm sure people don't mean nothing by it but.....I really want to be a smart *** back sometimes and say....

Why, does it bother you that I don't receive a check?
Would it bother you if I really did sit on the couch all day?
This is the time to work on my tan, yes!!
More shopping time!
Would it make you feel better if I worked until 3 before my child gets off the bus?
I hear happy hour starts at noon!
More time with the UPS man now

Maybe I will get a job and maybe I won't, but gee, I'm tired of people asking and not sure how to respond.
Thanks for the vent.

[frugal_in_SA]

I take it you're at home bringing up your son? Then you could tell them you already have the most important job in the world and you aren't sure how far down you want to come from that!!

I know a great musician who just gets by financially by writing the most divine music and playing a few gigs here and there. He's been surviving (and supporting a family) doing what he loves for thirty years and still gets asked (with disapproval) when he's going to get a real job!

For many people there's only one way they can imagine to live, and that's the traditional job and wage and making as much money as possible so they can buy as much stuff as possible. They are just incapable of imagining anything else, that's all, and they repeat all the mantras they hear.

I don't think sniping back would help, but you could always quote Thoreau:

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears
however measured or far away."

(From memory - apologies if I didn't get it 100% right.)

[mamamia]

Ya know what I think? I think the more things change, the more they stay the same! I have no great reply for you, but I do know how you feel. You should've heard some of the doozies I was asked when I was parading around Brooklyn with 5 kids all under the age of 6 .....lol! And especially from my so called "liberated" friends who didn't even have ANY kids, and were always happy to point out how rewarding their careers were! I was too happy and proud to care, and just chalked it off to jealousy, kwim?

So Palooka, I'm just sending a HUG , and wanted to say that sometimes the best answer is no answer at all. That's how I handled it. Leaves them standing there looking like a fool! HA!

Theresa

[monkeywrangler71]

People said this to me all the time when the kids were home all day, and I always kind of bristled at the question, as if they were implying my job was not important. But, the kids went to school this year and I am BORED SENSELESS. I didn't realize how much I got out of interacting with them all day. Now I think maybe those people were asking (most were former SAMH) because they know it's lonely at home when the kids are gone, not because they thought I was lazy. I never thought I would go back to work, but now I spend most of the morning reading job postings.

[imagine]

I remember when people would ask me that question. (I'm still a SAHM and my kids are 14 and 10) They weren't meaning to put me down. They were hinting they had a job for me or knew of a job available I would like.

Then they ask if I'm was ready to go back to work?

Now they just say let me know when your ready to go back to work?

[Momto5RN]

i use to get asked that when i stayed at home ater the 5th was born for 7 years - i think because i am a RN and can work nights or more than enough to cover day care costs etc and have extra left . so people that knew that would think that way - then i think one sil assumed i couldnt get a job because i had no BSN ( her dd was in school for nursing and thats what she had been told )

i found it more interesting the people at my kids school who didnt know my education background who assumed i had no post HS education and didnt work because it wouldnt cover the costs involved or of course i would be .

last year i was at a sr apt building near me and i had to walk to back knock on cts window because she didnt have her hearing aide in - walked to front of building again-saw a school mom pull in lot to visit come one i went in buzzed the buzzer again and the mom asked me if i did cleaning jobs there - i guess because i hadnt worked to her knowledge the previous years she just assumed it was all i could do for a job .

I actually laughed i was so shocked and said no i am a home care nurse. ( the ID badge and the bag with Bayada plastered across it wasnt a clue ?)
But it was really in the way she asked than if i was actually doing it - in a look isnt it cute she has a job tone .
I have friends who do well in their own cleaning businesses .


my mil actually asked me this weekend if i had another job yet to make up for the 2nd one i quit a few months ago .... umm no i quit the second job because it was too much for me healthwise tell your son to get a second job if you are so concerned.

[ms.mel.who]

My kids are 7, 10 and 13, and I love being home with them. I would work if I had to, and I totally get why some people work because they want to.

I was just hiking with the 10 year old and he was telling me about a friend who had all these things, and he says "I think it's cause the mom works." Then he tells me he doesn't want to have a mom that works because his friend is home alone everyday between 2-6. I just listened, its cool when your kids start to see the trade-offs in life.

I didn't want to break his heart and tell him we would not have all those things even if I made a million dollars, hehe.

[cab54]

Palooka, you crack me up!

"More time with the UPS man."

I got asked this a lot too, when my second son was ready for first grade. I came to believe later, that people are just trying to make conversation. Just curious, I think. But I know what ya mean, it makes you feel like they think you're just going to be sitting around popping bon-bons and watching soaps. Argh!

I told everyone I was going to declutter and thoroughly clean my house and finally keep it that way. I also was VERY involved at my kids' school---signing up for just about everything. So, I had PLENTY to do, thank you very much.

Anyway ----LOVED the UPS man comment. I spewed coffee all over my laptop.

[northernmom2boys]

Before I had my third and my other two were on school the big thing to say to me was ''oh my god you must be so bored all day'' what are you going to do with yourself?
I wanted to say none of your damm business or I am just going to rock in a chair until they come home llol
Some people!!!!

[Squidge]

I think a lot of this kind of talk is really just to make conversation or is based on the personal experience of the person asking the probing questions, but it is strange the way there is an 'expected' way to operate in society.

I know this isn't quite the same because I don't have kids, but I work part-time and I love my job. I also love the fact that I am only in 3 days per week and have plenty of time to study. People frequently ask me, 'When do you want to get full-time work?' or 'Aren't you ready to get a full-time job?' or, 'What do you do on your days off?!'.

I don't think people are annoyed exactly when they ask those kind of questions, I think they are just bemused. A lot of people believe that you are meant to work no matter what (even if you volunteer and do all manner of valuable unpaid activities, like raising kids) and you are meant to work a certain amount of hours per week because it's standard and because that's what everyone else does. The only way to contribute to the world in a respectable way is to do something for which you receive a sizable salary. I don't buy into that, personally.

[Syn D]

I was asked this in the past and just said "yeah right, so I go to work, get home in time for the kids to get home, then clean, cook, and everything else before I get to go to bed to get up the next morning and repeat everything again" "Yeah that would be a NO"

[FrabjousDay]

Someone will always have something to say, no matter your situation.

I've worked part-time since my son was born. At the office the comments are "When are you going back to full-time? Being home has to be so boring!", and with my SAHM friends the comments are "Why do you bother with work? You should stay home full-time!"

I've given up on explaining that I love my current arrangement, and don't want/need to devote myself full-time to one role over the other. The balance is good for me.

[Nishu]

Jobs are lame.

[dcompton]

I too think it's probably mostly just making conversation - unless there is really a reason to assume otherwise. It's like (in my situation) "What are you going to do when you retire?"

Whatever I want to and probably as little as possible after a lifetime of work.

We all know what it is like to live our own familiar lives, and tend to universalize from our own experience. If we work, it just seems normal. If we stay at home, that seems normal too. The question could be honest interest, or an (ineffective) way to bridge the gap between diverse experiences.

[Squidge]

Jobs are lame.

I don't know, Nishu, didn't you say somewhere you were in the Navy in charge of a nuclear reactor at some point or something along those lines? That sounds pretty badass to me